There is no evidence that any stable states exist between the assumed formation of proteins and the formation of the first living cells. No scientist has ever demonstrated that this fantastic jump in complexity could have happened—even if the entire universe had been filled with proteins (b).

b . “The events that gave rise to that first primordial cell are totally unknown, matters for guesswork and a standing challenge to scientific imagination.” Lewis Thomas, foreword to The Incredible Machine, editor Robert M. Pool (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Book Service, 1986), p.*7.

“No experimental system yet devised has provided the slightest clue as to how biologically meaningful sequences of subunits might have originated in prebiotic polynucleotides or polypeptides.” Kenyon, p.*A-20.

“If we can indeed come to understand how a living organism arises from the nonliving, we should be able to construct one—only of the simplest description, to be sure, but still recognizably alive. This is so remote a possibility now that one scarcely dares to acknowledge it; but it is there nevertheless.” George Wald, “The Origin of Life,” p.*45.

Experts in this field hardly ever discuss publicly how the first cell could have evolved. However, the world’s leading evolutionists know this problem exists. For example, on 27*July 1979, Luther D. Sunderland taped an interview with Dr.*David Raup, Dean of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. This interview was later transcribed and authenticated by both parties. Sunderland told Raup, “Neither Dr.*Patterson [of the British Museum (Natural History)] nor Dr.*Eldredge [of the American Museum of Natural History] could give me any explanation of the origination of the first cell.” *Dr. Raup replied, “I can’t either.”

“However, the macromolecule-to-cell transition is a jump of fantastic dimensions, which lies beyond the range of testable hypothesis. In this area all is conjecture. The available facts do not provide a basis for postulating that cells arose on this planet.” David E. Green and Robert F. Goldberger, Molecular Insights Into the Living Process (New York: Academic Press, 1967), pp.*406–407.

“Every time I write a paper on the origins of life I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts, though I must confess that in spite of this, the subject is so fascinating that I never seem to stick to my resolve.”* Crick, p.*153.

This fascination explains why the “origin of life” topic frequently arises—despite so much evidence showing that it cannot happen by natural processes. Speculations abound.

Living cells contain thousands of different chemicals, some acidic, others basic. Many chemicals would react with others were it not for an intricate system of chemical barriers and buffers. If living things evolved, these barriers and buffers must also have evolved—but at just the right time to prevent harmful chemical reactions. How could such precise, seemingly coordinated, virtually miraculous, events have happened for each of millions of species (a)?

All living organisms are maintained by thousands of chemical pathways, each involving a long series of complex chemical reactions. For example, the clotting of blood, which involves 20–30 steps, is absolutely vital to healing a wound. However, clotting could be fatal, if it happened inside the body. Omitting one of the many steps, inserting an unwanted step, or altering the timing of a step would probably cause death. If one thing goes wrong, all the earlier marvelous steps that worked flawlessly were in vain. Evidently, these complex pathways were created as an intricate, highly integrated system (b).

a. This delicate chemical balance, upon which life depends, was explained to me by biologist Terrence R. Mondy.

Proteins. “Genetic distances” can be calculated by taking a specific protein and examining the sequence of its components. The fewer changes needed to convert a protein of one organism into the corresponding protein of another organism, supposedly the closer their relationship. These studies seriously contradict the theory of evolution (a).

An early computer-based study of cytochrome c, a protein used in energy production, compared 47 different forms of life. This study found many contradictions with evolution based on this one protein. For example, according to evolution, the rattlesnake should have been most closely related to other reptiles. Instead, of these 47 forms (all that were sequenced at that time), the one most similar to the rattlesnake was man (b). Since this study, experts have discovered hundreds of similar contradictions (c).

a. Dr. Colin Patterson—Senior Principal Scientific Officer in the Palaeontology Department at the British Museum (Natural History)—gave a talk on 5*November 1981 to leading evolutionists at the American Museum of Natural History. He compared the amino acid sequences in several proteins of different animals. The relationships of these animals, according to evolutionary theory, have been taught in classrooms for decades. Patterson explained to a stunned audience that this new information contradicts the theory of evolution. In his words, “The theory makes a prediction; we’ve tested it, and the prediction is falsified precisely.” Although he acknowledged that scientific falsification is never absolute, he admitted “evolution was a faith,” he was “duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way,” and “evolution not only conveys no knowledge but seems somehow to convey anti-knowledge, apparent knowledge which is harmful to systematics [the science of classifying different forms of life].” “Prominent British Scientist Challenges Evolution Theory,” Audio Tape Transcription and Summary by Luther D. Sunderland, personal communication. For other statements from Patterson’s presentation see: Tom Bethell, “Agnostic Evolutionists,” Harper’s Magazine, February 1985, pp.*49–61.

“... it seems disconcerting that many exceptions exist to the orderly progression of species as determined by molecular homologies ...” Christian Schwabe, “On the Validity of Molecular Evolution,” Trends in Biochemical Sciences, July 1986, p.*280.

“It appears that the neo-darwinian hypothesis is insufficient to explain some of the observations that were not available at the time the paradigm [the theory of evolution] took shape….One might ask why the neo-darwinian paradigm does not weaken or disappear if it is at odds with critical factual information. The reasons are not necessarily scientific ones but rather may be rooted in human nature.” *Ibid., p.*282.

While the rattlesnake’s cytochrome c was most similar to man’s, man’s cytochrome c was most similar to that of the rhesus monkey. (If this seems like a contradiction, consider that City B could be the closest city to City A, but City C might be the closest city to City A.)

c. “As morphologists with high hopes of molecular systematics, we end this survey with our hopes dampened. Congruence between molecular phylogenies is as elusive as it is in morphology and as it is between molecules and morphology.” * Colin Patterson et al., p.*179.

DNA and RNA. Comparisons can be made between the genetic material of different organisms. The list of organisms that have had all their genes sequenced and entered in databases, such as “GenBank,” is doubling each year. Computer comparisons of each gene with all other genes in the database show too many genes that are completely unrelated to any others (d). Therefore, an evolutionary relationship between genes is highly unlikely. Furthermore, there is no trace at the molecular level for the traditional evolutionary series: simple sea life,*fish,*amphibians,*reptiles,*mammals (e). Each category of organism appears to be almost equally isolated (f).

(f). “The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins’ amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of evolutionary series.” *Ibid. p.*289.

“Thousands of different sequences, protein and nucleic acid, have now been compared in hundreds of different species but never has any sequence been found to be in any sense the lineal descendant or ancestor of any other sequence.” Ibid. pp.*289–290.

“Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus molecules, like fossils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology.” *Ibid. p.*290.

“There is little doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available one century ago it would have been seized upon with devastating effect by the opponents of evolution theory like Agassiz and Owen, and the idea of organic evolution might never have been accepted.” *Ibid. pp.*290–291.

“In terms of their biochemistry, none of the species deemed ‘intermediate’, ‘ancestral’ or ‘primitive’ by generations of evolutionary biologists, and alluded to as evidence of sequence in nature, show any sign of their supposed intermediate status.” *Ibid., p.*293.

Humans vs. Chimpanzees. Evolutionists say that the chimpanzee is the closest living relative to humans. For two decades (1984–2004), evolutionists and the media claimed that human DNA is about 99% similar to chimpanzee DNA. These statements had little scientific justification, because they were made before anyone had completed the sequencing of human DNA and long before the sequencing of chimpanzee DNA had begun.

Chimpanzee and human DNA have now been completely sequenced and compared. The overall differences are far greater and more complicated than evolutionists suspected (g). Divergencies include about “thirty-five million single-nucleotide changes, five million insertions or deletions, and various chromosomal rearrangements (h).” Although it is only 4% of the DNA, a vast DNA chasm of critical differences separates humans from chimpanzees.

Moreover, differences between the male portion of the human and chimpanzee sex chromosome are huge! More than 30% of those sequences, in either the human or the chimpanzee, do not match the other at all, and those that do, contain massive rearrangements (i). The genetic differences are comparable to those between the nonsex chromosomes in chickens and humans (j).

Finally, evolutionary trees, based on the outward appearance of organisms, can now be compared with the organisms’ genetic information.* They conflict in major ways (k).

g. After sequencing just the first chimpanzee chromosome, surprises were apparent.

“Surprisingly, though, nearly 68,000 stretches of DNA do differ to some degree between the two species…Extra sections of about 300 nucleotides showed up primarily in the human chromosome…Extra sections of other sizes—some as long as 54,000 nucleotides—appear in both species.” Bruce Bower, “Chimp DNA Yields Complex Surprises,” Science News, Vol. 165, 12 June 2004, p. 382.

“Indeed, 83% of the 231 coding sequences, including functionally important genes, show differences [even] at the amino acid sequence level….the biological consequences due to the genetic differences are much more complicated than previously speculated.” H. Watanabe et al., “DNA Sequence and Comparative Analysis of Chimpanzee Chromosome 22,” Nature, Vol. 429, 27 May 2004, pp. 382, 387.

j. “... the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.” Ibid. p.*538.

k. “Instead, the comparisons [using DNA] have yielded many versions of the tree of life that differ from the rRNA tree and conflict with each other as well.” Elizabeth Pennisi, “Is It Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?” Science, Vol.*284, 21 May 1999, p.*1305.

Each book would have a volume of about 50 cubic inches. An adult human’s body contains about 10^14 (10 to the 14th power) cells. About 800 cubic miles have been eroded from the Grand Canyon. Therefore, we can say that if every cell in one person’s body were reduced to 4,000 books, th
ey would fill the Grand Canyon 98 times.

The Moon is 240,000 miles from Earth. If the DNA in a human cell were stretched out and connected, it would be more than 7 feet long. If all this DNA in one person’s body were placed end-to-end, it would extend to the Moon 552,000 times.

The DNA in a human cell weighs 6.4*x*10^-12 (10 to the –12 power) grams. [See Monroe W. Strickberger, Genetics, 2nd edition (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1976), p.*54.] Probably less than 50 billion people have lived on earth. If so, one copy of the DNA of every human who ever lived—enough to define the physical characteristics of all those people in microscopic detail—would weigh only 6.4*×*10^-12 × 50 × 10^9**=**0.32 grams.
This is less than the weight of one aspirin.

“... there is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over. ... There is enough storage capacity in the DNA of a single lily seed or a single salamander sperm to store the Encyclopaedia Britannica 60 times over. Some species of the unjustly called ‘primitive’ amoebas have as much information in their DNA as 1,000 Encyclopaedia Britannicas.”* Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, pp.*116–117.